On October 3, 1924, Syracuse University formally opened a new unit of the College of Liberal Arts, known as the School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. It was a smaller and humbler enterprise than today’s, and yet held the seeds of much of what Maxwell would become.

The School was headquartered in Slocum Hall. It offered an undergraduate citizenship course, a new political science department and weekly seminar in political science, and a one-year graduate program in public administration (the nation’s first MPA). It was not yet known as the Maxwell School, since its founding donor, SU trustee George Maxwell, was then anonymous.

The Maxwell School was later redefined as a graduate school and renamed for its donor. It grew to include a full array of scholarly programs in the social sciences, additional professional degrees, curriculum and teaching for SU undergraduates, and a robust research portfolio. However, while the School evolved, its core emphases — citizenship, social science scholarship, and professional education in public affairs — remained as they began, 90 years ago. That range of emphases imbues Maxwell’s programs with interdisciplinary breadth and long-range perspective. They provide a reminder that what we do is consequential; societies depend on skilled, conscientious, broadly educated public servants. These are values Maxwell has never lost.